12 months of Growing [a little] Good

This month’s update reflects on our first anniversary and covers a few important points

Here’s what you’ll miss if you don’t scroll down 😉

October 20th marked 12 months since the first veg box was ordered on the Growing Good platform. Time has flown since then, driven along by a relentless feeling of there not being enough hours in a day - something familiar to all no doubt.

I just wanted to say how proud we are to have you on our platform, many of you made the call to onboard with us before we were even live with Sandy Lane, a bold call and hopefully one that you still feel was the right one!

When we conceived the idea for Growing Good (well pre-Covid and at that point called ‘A Local Veg Box’) we hoped it would solve some of the biggest headaches we experienced growing and running the Ten Mile Menu (now Sandy Lane) box scheme.

For nostalgia’s sake, below are some visuals from a doc that I created in early 2020 to help ‘pitch’ the concept to anyone that might listen - it’s pleasing that much of the intent and principle behind the early idea remains central to how we make decisions today.

With 12 month’s worth of data to consider we’re now in a good place to analyse and reflect on the impact the early version of our software has had on life at Sandy Lane Farm - we’re delighted to say that results have been more than we hoped for. The team have done a great job of packaging a short video to summarise, please take a look! 👀 👇🏽

George and the team have really embraced a greater customer-centric ethos, and while there was a bit of pre-leap-of-faith anxiety it has been a major factor in growing sales.

Hopefully you have all now seen the details on the significant update released yesterday, with the two key enhancements being around delivery planning and the automated dislike-swap algorithm.

If you haven’t, then please check them out here Release notes - V1.1.8 Date:1/11/2023 and Release notes video: Ep 1 October 2023

Amongst others, in the coming months we’ll be working hard on a few big pieces of functionality;

For those of you that use collection points frequently, there will be a big update that will result in a new collection point workflow - planning for, capacity management, customer and fulfilment data grouping, customer experience, delivery planning etc will all be built upon to improve the customer and admin experience. Likely completion date - before the end of Jan.

The biggest piece of work will introduce customer attributes that will allow you to segment your customer base and produce reports based on a configuration unique to you, you’ll be able to create your own tags and allocate them in the way that works best for you. Likely completion date - before the end of Feb.

We hope that you’ll all benefit from the introduction of discount codes - version one will be simple (% money off overall or on a product) but again it will be configurable to suit in your admin. We’ll then build on the functionality with more advanced features. Likely completion date - before the end of Jan.

Continuing the theme of development work, by the end of November you will have access to a new transactions report that can be used to keep the tax man happy! You’ll have access to a week by week exportable transaction list with a summarised breakdown of VAT paid and the fee split between payment processing (Stripe) and GG. You will also be able to download a VAT invoice on weekly basis - this is for accounting purposes only as you will have already ‘paid’ for the fees as a split on each transaction.

As we move towards the update described above, as of November 1st we are charging VAT upon each transaction. Up to October 31st you have been charged the payment and platform fee only - we are close to being able to send you invoices for your usage-to-date that will require you to pay us for the VAT element only. I am happy for you to wait and do this as close to filing your next tax return as you wish, so it keeps any impact on cash flow to a minimum. Any Q’s about this drop me a message on discord ideally, but a call, whatsapp, email or pigeon is also fine.

Up until now we have remained completely product-focused and have spent very little time (and zero money) on marketing. We are grateful for all of you that have shared kind words about us and already introduced us to new potential users.

As we look to 2024 we need to think about growing our user-base, from today we will be more proactive in promoting GG to the wider veg box community - it goes without saying that your help in doing so would be amazing. Not only is it the most effective way of advertising it is also the cheapest! More importantly it requires less of our time that we can rather invest in the product. The larger our user-base becomes the more we can invest in capability, it’s an obvious win-win.

As with my last point above, a successful funding round early next year will be a huge win for all of us. We have many pieces of big development work scoped that could have a huge impact on our productivity as a community, but don’t yet have the resources to deliver on them as quickly as we’d like. I love the idea of ‘people powered veg’ and think our model as a ‘business for good’ lends itself well to crowdfunding. It goes without saying that our reach as a community is already wide, and much wider than any one of us individually. If you are able to keep an open mind as to how we can help each other as I share more information over the coming months it would be really appreciated. Again, any Q’s I am available to chat anytime.

If there is enough interest in organising a group call (call it an informal webinar) led by George, centred around some of the changes he’s introduced at SLF since moving onto our platform then do let me know. Aside from the software there have been many subtle changes from the packing shed operation, loading vans to farm events, local signage, weekly newsletters etc that all feed into sales growth - could be a good reason to spend an hour online together. I’ll put a call out on our discord announcements channel, please reply there if you’re keen.

Thank you again for being part of our community and well done for making it this far on my ramble (assume I’m speaking to one or two of you by now) - you’re in a special group! 😜